Downstream of the finishing train, rolling plants for bars and profiles normally provide a cooling zone and a zone for the formation of bundles or layers in which the bars are counted and, when the desired number for the formation of the bundle is reached, tied and discharged.
In the bundle-forming step, there is the problem that the bars arranged on the carrier plane, particularly if emerging from a multi-profile formation process, are often superimposed and twisted lengthwise, so that it is difficult to count them accurately and without mistakes, and difficult to separate the last bar of one layer from the first bar of the next layer.
There have been proposals for separation devices which raise the leading end of the last bar in one layer with respect to the carrier plane in order to separate it from the adjacent bar.
This lifting is problematic at times and is not able to separate bars which overlap or are twisted together for a considerable part of their length. Moreover, lifting the bars from the carrier plane may cause them to be axially mis-aligned.
Other solutions have proposed movable blades or arms arranged below the carrier plane and suitable to be inserted into the gap between two adjacent bars in order to separate them.
These means are only able to separate the bars in correspondence with the leading ends, they cannot eliminate twisted and overlapping bars.
Moreover, they only give a minimum separation, which is not sufficient to ensure accurate counting and easy manipulation.
These problems therefore cause mistakes and the formation of layers which are not homogeneous, creating considerable problems in the subsequent step of tying and packing the bundles of bars.
The problems are even greater in the case of multi-profile rolling and the thinner the bars are, in which case the possibility of the bars being overlapping and twisted on the carrier plane is even higher.
The present Applicant has devised, tested and embodied this invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain further advantages.